The Guava the Pionus Chose

Omar Enrique Berdugo Cabeza arrived at the aviary as he does every morning, with the unhurried step of someone who knows his feathered neighbors well. There they were — the three blue-headed parrots, B235, B117, and B118, all wearing their green FL-VN tags — perched on the wooden bar as though they had been waiting for him for centuries. While some of them cooled off splashing in the water, one of the pionus rendered its verdict without a moment's hesitation: out of the entire tray of guava, papaya, cucumber, orange, and bell pepper, it chose the guava. The others, more reserved, preferred the coolness of the shade boxes beneath the midday heat. A little further along, in aviary three, a pair of real parrots had plans of their own. They shared a papaya with that unhurried, complicit ease that old couples have — no rush, no quarrel, pressed close to one another as if the fruit simply tasted better that way, in company. Omar watched them for a moment before carrying on with his work, and in that silence of wire mesh and wood, with no other witnesses, an ordinary afternoon at the reserve quietly wrote itself into memory.